I just bought a couple year old Dimension 8300 desktop. I put a new WD 1TB hard drive in it and replaced the dead clock battery, hoping that that would be enough to get it up and running..however it was not.

I'm trying to install ubuntu 10.10 on it and have a CD with the program installed on it. I can get it to work fine on other systems so that's not the problem.

I am telling it to boot off of the IDE CD drive, but when I try it, I either instantly get the message telling me to push "F1 to retry or F2 to go into setup" or it will try for a little while (15 seconds or less) and then give me the same message I just stated.

I could try burning another copy of ubuntu and see if the disc is too beat up for the drive I suppose. I don't have any xp/vista/7 discs lying around though.
Also, I just tried getting it to install the ubuntu cd that I have and i got a different message it said:
"primary drive 0 not found"
and then proceeded to give me the F1/F2 message. Did I put my drive in wrong?

I tell it to boot from the IDE CD drive by pushing F12 at startup and selecting option #4. Usually when I do it, the disc drive spins up but then give me the usual F1/F2 message.

I have made the optical drives the first boot devices with no luck.

I've been messing with IDE UDMA, but upon your suggestion, it will stay ON from now on.

I just got done moving the cable on the motherboard to the other IDE socket and, like you said, they are now seen as the master and slave drives - a promising start perhaps, but they still won't boot up the ubuntu disc. I've tried using both drives and I still get the same old message.

I can't find an 'advanced tab' anywhere on the BIOS. The BIOS version is A05 if that means anything. Under drive configuration, all I can do is look at what drives are detected by the machine. I've been looking through the entire BIOS for anything similar to this and can't find it. Any other ideas?

Also, not sure if this means anything, but every time I get the Press F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility message, Two beeps come from the computer. If I hit F1, I will get two beeps and the exact same message will show up.

I tried booting off a flash drive and that led to the same result: F1/F2 message

This setup screen is arranged a little differently than what I'm accustomed too. I don't recall on a Dell seeing a setting for OS Install Mode.

Also when you open BIOS at the top of the 1st BIOS screen there should be some information regarding the Processor, Level 2 Cache, BIOS Version, and Service Tag. Post the information listed in those blocks.

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